


Ypres

by flippyspoon



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:14:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1446343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas isn't the only one with scars from the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ypres

“I could teach you a song or two if ya like,” Jimmy said.

The statement came out of nowhere in the quiet of the yard and Thomas glanced over, puffing on his cigarette. “Hmm?”

“I don’t know. This morning you said you ought to have learned an instrument. I could teach you to play a little.”

“Yes, alright,” Thomas agreed. “Why not?”

His habit was not to let himself be overly pleased by such offers. Except that the offers had come one after the other from Jimmy; an excuse for them to run some errand in the village or go to Thirsk, a plea to teach him a thing or two about valeting. These days Jimmy and Thomas were only ever apart while they slept or worked in different rooms. Now Jimmy ducked his head and smiled at the ashy ground.

“Good, good,” Jimmy said. “Lessons tonight instead of cards then.”

That evening, sitting at the piano with Jimmy alone in the softly lit hall, Thomas started to wonder. He tried to fight it, except that Jimmy sat so close and spoke in husky tones as he showed him scales and chords. He’d taken off his livery jacket and loosened his tie. The careful wave of hair that Thomas thought of as his trademark now hung loose over his eye.

“Are you listening to me?” Jimmy said.

Thomas blinked at him and said, “Mmm, yes.”

“What did I say?” Jimmy said, a note of challenge in his low tone.

“Somethin’ about A minor,” Thomas said.

“Right,” Jimmy said, tittering. He laid his hand over Thomas’s on the keys, stretching his thumb and pinky wide. “And then like this…spread your fingers out.” It was Thomas’s left hand and Jimmy’s fingers rested on the leather glove and his cool skin. Thomas willed the beating of his heart to slow. It didn’t work. “You’ve never really showed me your wound,” Jimmy said.

“I hate it.” Thomas’s jaw was tight. Sometimes he didn’t wear the glove off-hours. Maybe it was more noticeable than the wound would be. Then he would see the ugly scars and back it would go. “I hate war wounds. So ugly and pathetic.”

Just like that Jimmy’s hand jerked and moved away. Jimmy stood and cleared this throat. “I think that’s enough for tonight anyhow.”

“What already?” Thomas said, and hoped he didn’t’ sound desperate. “It’s early still.”

“We’ll continue tomorrow,” Jimmy said quickly, and disappeared up the stairs to his room.

Jimmy seemed quieter than usual the next day. He wasn’t making his usual sarcastic remarks and bothering Ivy and Daisy in the kitchens. Instead Thomas watched him hang back, sullen.

“Are you alright?” Thomas asked him, after the family had eaten and the dishes were cleared away.

“Yeah,” Jimmy muttered. “I just… I need to talk to you about somethin’.”

Thomas nodded. But they didn’t’ get a chance to speak alone. The closest they could get was sitting at the piano again, but Alfred was at the table, sitting across from Anna and Bates. Jimmy was showing Thomas how to play a simple rag, but he didn’t seem very interested. He frowned down at their fingers on the keys.

“Will you tell me what’s the matter?” Thomas said.

Their heads were bowed near to each other and Jimmy raised his eyes to meet his. “Um…”

They were close enough for a kiss and there were  _people_  in the room on top of everything else. Thomas watched Jimmy’s mouth twitch and then he felt a hand rest gently on his. He glanced down. Jimmy wan’t teaching him a chord. His smaller hand covered Thomas’s left. His fingers curled between Thomas’s fingers, clasping them together. “Uh…Thomas…”

Thomas waited for Jimmy to speak, watching the peculiar way his bottom lip stretched wide independent of the rest of his face when he was uncertain. Jimmy leaned, close, too close, and Thomas sat back, his eyes big. “What’re you doin’?” He whispered.

Euphoria flickered, flamed, and turned to a heady smoke as Thomas’s eyes directed Jimmy’s to the other three people in the room.

“Ha, I forgot,” Jimmy said, chuckling.

“ _You_ forgot?”

Jimmy scooted away from him on the piano bench, frowning as he did so. But his hand stayed where it was, and squeezed Thomas’s. “I need to talk to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes. In my room? Or-”

“Yes,” Jimmy said. His hand moved up Thomas’s arm and then under the piano to pat Thomas’s knee before returning to the keys. “Yes.”

Thomas forced himself to wait a bit; afraid leaving the hall so much earlier than usual with Jimmy on his heels, might seem suspicious. Several nervous smokes later, after he had changed and washed for the night, he was in his room, sitting in his chair, smoking his fourth in an hour.

When Jimmy walked in, wearing his bed clothes, Thomas started to rise and sat down again. He flinched, relaxed in his seat, and took another puff.

“I know you,” Jimmy said quietly, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “I know you better than I’ve ever known anyone. I know you better…” He laughed. “I know you better than I thought I ever _would_  know anyone..”

 _Hmm, pity that perhaps_ , Thomas thought.  _Have I been too forthcoming?_

Thomas said, “Jimmy-”

“No, just wait,” Jimmy pleaded. “I thought that would be enough. It would have to be. And…that was after sussing out how much you’d changed in my eyes. I hated you before. Well, no, at first I truly didn’t. You  _made_ me hate you, not on purpose, I know, because I-I…you made me question  _everything_ and…” He shook his head, Thomas only just barely understanding his babble. “Look, sod it. I think I’m in love with you. I don’t know what else to call it. I’m goin’ mad for God’s sakes so just come here and kiss me before I lose my senses-”

Thomas rose and crossed the room, and bowing his head to meet Jimmy’s lips, he wondered if it was normal to lose feeling in one’s extremities at such moments. Jimmy’s mouth was warm and pliant, his arms came up to wrap around Thomas. It was odd too, kissing a bloke so much shorter than he. Thomas wasn’t used to it.

 _You’re hardly used to kissing a bloke at all_ , he thought idly.  _Unless they’re asleep. Idiot._

Jimmy was making funny little noises and Thomas had not even felt his tongue yet. He kissed the corner of Thomas’s jaw. “You shouldn’t have done what ya did,” he whispered.

“I-I know,” Thomas stuttered. “I’m sorry for it, you know, I wouldn’t do it again-”

“Oh, shut up,” Jimmy murmured, and silenced Thomas’s mouth again with his own. “I shouldn’t have done what  _I_ did either. I think you’ve paid penance more than enough…”

Their lips parted when they kissed next and Thomas felt the warm little muscle of Jimmy’s tongue.

_Heaven._

_Or the pearly gates anyhow._

Jimmy stumbled back a step, but pulled Thomas along with him so they were leaning against the bureau. Thomas bowed his head lower to gain the feel of Jimmy’s neck on his lips, and sighed. “Is this real? Are you here?”

“Yes,” Jimmy breathed and held him tightly. “Yes, yes I promise, I’ve  _wanted_  to be here. Like this. With you.”

“Ha! Uh, give me a minute,” Thomas said, and rested his head on Jimmy’s shoulder, just to get his bearings; he was dizzy. He ran his hands up and down Jimmy’s arms. Solid, strong arms covered in beautiful warm skin. And beneath that skin was Jimmy, who was clever, wicked, complicated, and increasingly sweet.

And in love, so he said. He thought he was in love. A new favorite song for Thomas.

“I want to be with you,” Jimmy whispered in his ear. “In every way, I just… Might take me a bit-”

“Don’t worry about that,” Thomas murmured.

“No, it’s not how you’re thinkin’,” Jimmy said. “It’s just…hard for me to talk about yet.”

Thomas wondered if something bad had happened to Jimmy he’d never spoken of. Something untoward. It filled him with fear. That would make what  _he_  had done even worse. It was hard for Jimmy to talk about. Alright. But Thomas would climb the walls without a hint at least.

“Did someone hurt you?” He pressed. He leaned back and rose an eyebrow.

“God, nothin’ like that,” Jimmy said. “No. I-I just… I’ll tell you, alright, just not yet? But this is good, isn’t it?” Jimmy cast him a hopeful gaze and kissed his jaw again.

“Yes, this is  _very_  good.” They stood like that, leaning against the bureau, kissing with no further goals, though Thomas’s skin was heated.

“You taste like smoke,” Jimmy said, muttering against Thomas’s lips. “Smoke and…dark places…mmm…and mint.”

Thomas smiled into his cheek and tongue-kissed him there. “Dark places?”

“Mmm, no, it’s good,” Jimmy said. “A dark place where we’re alone. And it’s smokey and…minty. I’ve dreamed of it.”

Thomas couldn’t help but chuckle, “You’re so poetic suddenly.”

“Don’t laugh, stupid,” Jimmy said. But he smirked and pulled Thomas yet closer. “I can’t seem to stop talkin’ is all. Haven’t the foggiest what I’m sayin’.”

“Well, I’m enjoying it, so you know,” Thomas said. But a thought occurred to him and he frowned. “Do you mind the cigarettes? You never smoke.”

“No.” Even in the dim light, Thomas saw the flush in his cheeks. “I’m used to it. You always smell like smoke, it’s  _you_.”

“And you think you love me?” Thomas said carefully.

Jimmy snorted and his hand cupped Thomas’s hip, sneaking in just under the hem of his shirt. “Blimey, Thomas, I know I love you. Just never said it to anyone.”

Thomas shut his eyes and said, “God, please don’t wake me up.”

“You’re not dreamin’, you nutter.” He chuckled, his hands around Thomas’s waist. “Or are your dreams so tame?”

“Ah…” Now Thomas blushed and his forehead rested against Jimmy’s. He kissed the side of Jimmy’s nose. “Good point. That’s an easy tell.”

Jimmy pressed into him and they stopped talking. It was all warm breath and grasping at pajamas and Thomas felt that they were both hard.

“Ah, Thomas… Ah… I do so want you.  _Badly_. Only…”

“Then you should go to bed. Your own bed, I mean,” he said quickly. It pained him to say so. But one thing at a time.

“Yes…um…”

It took them ten minutes to manage separating. Jimmy left him with a kiss on his neck. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Oh, I”m certain you’ll feature in my dreams quite strongly before then.”

Jimmy laughed at the ceiling and spinning on his heel, bid him goodnight.

The next day was full of stolen kisses and furtive glances across the room. Thomas was lighter than air. The days after that were the same. They played cards, found excuses to run errands to the village, and chatted as usual. But at night there was necking and whispers, and sometimes a little bit of whiskey. Yet Thomas never pushed things, so things never got terribly far. Until one night after a week of such goings on, when Thomas was about to suggest they part because he was mad with desire, and Jimmy’s hand slid down his over Thomas’s chest to his trousers and palmed his groin. Thomas swallowed a moan and gripped the sleeves of Jimmy’s shirt.

“I just want to touch you,” Jimmy whispered. “Just that.” And his hand slid under Thomas’s waistband. Thomas started to reciprocate but Jimmy pushed his hand back. “N-No, not yet. Just kiss me.”

Thomas kissed him, in between embarrassing sounds that were probably something between groans and whimpers as Jimmy’s hand curled around him and his thumb fondled the head of Thomas’s prick. Jimmy nipped at his neck. “I thought about doin’ this….”

“I thought about you doin’ this too,” Thomas managed to say. Jimmy stroked him with one hand and pushed up Thomas shirt with the other to feel the curly hairs on his chest.

“God, why is this perfect?” Jimmy muttered.

Thomas kissed his cheek and his neck and arched into his hand. “Ah! Never…never ask yourself that. You’ll lose your mind.”

“I don’t just mean men, I mean  _you_.”  
Thomas had no answer for him and then his head fell back to the pillows as Jimmy stroked him harder. Jimmy kissed him and suckled at his neck until it was purpled. Thomas came whispering his name.

There were two more such occasions. Jimmy wouldn’t unbuckle his belt though, and he wouldn’t say way. Thomas stopped himself asking a dozen times. Jimmy insisted it wasn’t because he was shy about relations with a man per se. Thomas couldn’t imagine it had anything to do with his body. Jimmy’s body was perfect from what Thomas could see. He mentioned it nearly every time they were together, until he noticed that it made Jimmy shy, even sad, so he stopped mentioning it.

“I want to taste you, Thomas,” Jimmy whispered in his ear one night while they lay together on top of the blankets, writhing in their clothes. Thomas’s hand reached around to cup Jimmy’s arse in his pajamas and they rutted together. Thomas was aching and half-delirious. But he kissed Jimmy softly and his gloved hand stroked Jimmy’s cheek. “Alright. If you want to. But I want to touch you… I want to see you…”

“Aah,” Jimmy’s eye skittered away. “No, not that yet.”

“Then at least let me…” Thomas stroked Jimmy through the cloth of his pajamas. He had never quite figured out if this was not allowed or if Jimmy only objected to taking off his clothes. He wasn’t objecting now and he bit back a moan and kissed Thomas greedily, clutching his shoulders.

Thomas shook with unspent lust, watching Jimmy lost in his. Jimmy was speechless, his mouth open, his blonde lashes fluttering. “God, I love you,” Thomas murmured. “I don’t know what it is, why you’re shy. It’s okay if you’re shy. Whatever it is, I’ll still love you.” He touched Jimmy, feeling him through the thin cloth; exactly the shape and length and width of him hard in his hand. “I love you, you’re perfect, even if you’re not perfect, you’re perfect to me, my love. Believe me. Please.”

“Yes,” Jimmy said panting. He mouthed the skin along Thomas’s collar bone, nuzzling his neck, and hooked one leg over Thomas’s drawing them closer as he neared. “Yes, alright…yes….”

But no answers were forthcoming that night, after Jimmy came, biting Thomas’s shoulder and rested there, panting.

“I can’t now,” he said, half-asleep. “I have to tell you the story and I’m spent.”

Thomas thought he had failed. But the next night, Jimmy came to his room, a touch earlier than usual. But instead of coming to Thomas for a kiss as he smoked at the window, he sat on the bed and rested his hands on his knees.

“Are you alright?” Thomas said.

“Yeah, Jimmy said nodding. “Do you have some of that whiskey left you nicked form the village dance?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Don’t bother with a glass.”

Thomas dug the bottle out of his closet. There was a quarter left and he took a healthy sip himself before handing it to Jimmy. Jimmy took two healthy sips and sat with the bottle on his knee.

“Can I see your hand?” Jimmy said, his eyes on the floor.

“Why?”

“Oh, come on. You haven’t taken the glove off since we’ve started this. You think I haven’t noticed?”

Thomas sat beside him and, grimacing, he pulled off his glove. Jimmy frowned and grabbed Thomas’s hand hard, glaring at it, inspecting the front and back. His expression didn’t change.

“It’s nothin’,” he said bitterly.

“Excuse me?” Thomas said.

“I can barely see it.”

“It’s dark in here.”

Jimmy reached over and turned on Thomas’s lamp and yanked his hand over under the light. “It’s nothin’. Damn. Damn you.” He shoved Thomas’s naked hand away from him, grunting. “All that whinging-”

“ _Whinging_?”

“No, I’m sorry.” He sank his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Jimmy, what is it?” Thomas asked, perhaps for the hundredth time. “Have you got a wound you don’t want me to see? Is that what it is? From the war?”

Jimmy flinched and glanced up at him with fearful eyes. “Yes.”

“Just tell me, would you?” Thomas said, nudging his knee. “Don’t worry about showing me. Just tell me what happened.”

Jimmy sat up straight and took another sip of whiskey, coughing a little. He sighed, stared, took another sip of whiskey. A full minute of silence passed before he spoke.

Jimmy said, “War stories are dull. They’re always dull. Everyone dresses em’ up, but they’re all the same. There’s a clever soldier and a simple soldier and one who’s craven and one who’s brave and somebody tells dirty limericks. Then they all run out in front of the guns and half get killed and one gets saved by the brave one. And whoever’s left is wounded. That’s the other one. Who’s just there. Who doesn’t belong with any of the others and would throw them all in front of the guns to save his own skin. That was me.” Jimmy’s eyes fixed on some arbitrary spot in the rug. “It was Ypres. Just before the end. Fuck it all. What does it matter? Dark of night. We were meant to take a German camp by surprise. Only they weren’t so surprised. Funny thing… Most of the lads I knew who died got it from getting stuck in that bloody bog or from the gas… I didn’t get stuck in the mud. I were light on my feet, ya see. But I couldn’t outrun shrapnel.”

Thomas’s breath hitched but he tried not to react otherwise. He had seen hundred of shrapnel wounds. All of them terrible.

“Tore the bloody hell out of my leg,” Jimmy said, so quietly Thomas almost didn’t hear him. “I almost bled to death. And then, you know, you come home and everyone says well, at least you didn’t get it in the face like  _those_  poor lads. They off themselves. Well, I don’t bloody care about them. I’m sorry for it. Yes, I am glad I didn’t get bloody shrapnel in my bloody face but it’s  _my_  leg. Anyhow. Why mention it here? I’d just rather no one knew. Only now…” He looked up at Thomas again. “It’s different now.”

“You don’t have to show me right here if you don’t want to,” Thomas said. He kissed Jimmy’s cheek. “But I swear to you on anything you’d like to name, it won’t change how I feel.”

“I hate it when people make promises when-”

“It  _won’t_.” Thomas held Jimmy’s chin in his hands and kissed him firmly. “I love you. I’m in love with you. Do you love me?”

“Yes,” Jimmy whispered.

“Spiffy.”

“Right,” Jimmy said. He nodded and took a long sip of whiskey and then shook his head. “Alright then. Look, it’s  _awful_.”

Thomas doubted it was as awful as Jimmy was making it out to be. And Jimmy was a vain sort. He might make a mountain out of a molehill on such matters. Now he scooted back on the bed and Thomas watched his trembling hands push his trousers down his legs and shove them off the end of his feet. Then he sat there, his legs stretched out in front of him, his head bowed.

“God. Fuck,” Jimmy muttered.

It took Thomas’s eyes a moment to adjust to the light and another moment to remind himself not to stare at the lovely prick in front of him.

_Nothing wrong there, certainly._

Then he thought his mind was playing tricks. Until memories of similar injuries popped into his head. No, of course. There were chunks missing from Jimmy’s left leg above the knee; scarred over and deep indentations. Thomas’s medic-training took over, even so long as it had been. He did not react in horror. Jimmy had been hit in his left hip and buttock. His thigh was ravaged, as if some monster from a child’s nightmares had come along and scooped out bits of flesh with its claws, leaving it to heal.

“Well,  _say_ somethin’,” Jimmy said.

“You walk normally,” Thomas said. “Did you lose any mobility?”

“It was rough going for a year,” Jimmy said. “I walk different than I used to. But no.”

Thomas nodded slowly. It was the strangest sight. Jimmy was a human work of art in his imagination; an Adonis. But he was marred.

 _Like one of those old statues with the arms torn off_ , he thought.

Yet they were still beautiful.

There was not the slightest question in his mind that Jimmy was still beautiful. He reached his wounded hand out and traced the wide lines and irregular curves of scars that started at Jimmy’s left hip.

Jimmy said, “Ah, it’s awful-”

“Shut up. Of course, it’s awful. No one should look like that. ‘Cause no one should get shot up with shrapnel. But shut up.” Thomas’s eyes took in Jimmy’s body; the lovely muscles of his stomach and his arms, and his smooth golden skin, his glittering blue eyes that squinted with wary mischief and softened with loving sweetness when they were together, his wonderfully expressive pretty face, and now his scars that told of terrors everyone would rather forget. Thomas leaned forward and kissed Jimmy’s hip.

“N-no, it’s ugly, it’s ugly,” Jimmy protested. Thomas could hear that his voice was thick. He pushed up the hem of Jimmy’s shirt.

“Take this off,” Thomas said. Jimmy hesitated, but tossed aside his shirt and lay back, naked, staring at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. Thomas followed the trail of scar tissue with his lips, down Jimmy’s hip and along the outside of his thigh, kissing the craggy indentations there. “You’re perfect. Even if you aren’t perfect. You are to me. I told you that. I love you.” And his lips followed the smooth ridges like low mountains, to the inside of Jimmy’s thigh. Jimmy gasped and murmured. He was half-hard and Thomas kissed his prick and his hand cupped Jimmy’s wounded buttock. He kissed Jimmy’s cock almost absent-mindedly as if it where as innocent as kissing his cheek, until his love was swollen and hard. So was Thomas. He took off his own shirt and pulled himself up to hover over Jimmy.

“Did you really think I’d love you any less? I thought you knew me.” Thomas said.

“No, I…I do. Still. I was…frightened.”

“I know.” He kissed Jimmy sweetly. “I know, love. I’m sorry it happened to you.”

Jimmy took his wounded hand and nodded at it. “I’m sorry too.”

Thomas nodded and strategically lowered himself to grind his own still clothed prick against Jimmy’s. “Ah!” Jimmy looked pained. “God…. Thomas… I want to feel you, let me feel you…”

Thomas took of his trousers. He turned them over so they were on their sides, which Jimmy had become accustomed to. Only now they were naked before each other. Jimmy’s eyes looked him over and he flushed. But, swallowing, he inched closer to Thomas and kissed him and his hand wandered over Thomas’s hip and up his chest to his broad shoulders. Then their pricks were sliding against each other and they writhed, gasping, and breathing each other’s air. Thomas felt like some fumbling hall boy again. Jimmy was on his right side so his wounded left leg was out and Thomas held it and brought them as close as they could get. They hooked their legs together and Thomas reached down to bring them both off in one hand; the friction of their cocks maddening, and Jimmy hissed and kissed his chest and muttered prayers and filthy things.

“Yes, ah…” Thomas said into Jimmy’s hair. They tangled together, tensing and then relaxing only to tense again, limbs and legs and skin; hot and smooth and marred and hairy and pale and golden.

“Thomas, love, yes, love,” Jimmy murmured. He had never called Thomas “love” before, Thomas remembered later. “God, faster…”

Then Jimmy clenched around him, fingers likely bruising his arms and he came and shuddered, muffling his cry by attempting to burrow into Thomas’s chest. And before Thomas knew precisely what was happening Jimmy had slid down down the bed and was taking Thomas’s prick in his mouth.

Thomas held on for all of thirty seconds and then Jimmy was coughing. But he didn’t seem put out. Thomas felt a surge of protectiveness and when he finally moved again again, he curled up behind Jimmy, spooning him. Jimmy took Thomas’s wounded hand in his and kissed his palm. Thomas’s eyes traveled down the line of Jimmy’s shoulder, his arm, his smooth side, his scarred hip, his catastrophic leg… He kissed Jimmy between his shoulder blades.

“Thanks for staying alive,” Thomas said. “I’m glad I know you.”

Jimmy tittered and squeezed his hand. “I’m glad I know you too.”

 

 


End file.
